once again, we're wounded

I think I have been whining about the incompetence and senility of many of the current Con'gress ministers in the central government, particularly the then Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, and the HRD Minister, Arjun Singh. Shivraj Patil has finally been shown the door in the aftermath of the greatest terrorist attack on Indian soil in Mumbai.

Had it been a bomb blast, and even though scores would have lost their lives, we would have heard a hullaballo from our impotent, devious netas, and the streets would be cleaned up, promises of improving the system would be made, and we'd be back to living our lives.

Now the terror has reached where our rich and powerful live and dine, places where the foreign (read caucasian, white) tourists stay, and it seems the society is waking up to the fact that nothing has been done other than promises. So Shivraj Patil, that Gandhi butler, lost his post, so what? There is nothing that anybody can expect from this senile, divisive agenda-driven party, and with the polls coming, they couldnt care less if the internal intelligence structure is strengthened or not. They want to win the elections, and parties don't win elections with good work, especially good work that goes behind the scenes and can't be boasted about in your election campaigns. Let me not even talk of the possibilities in front of P Chidambaram, because it will be pointless.

The only hope that I have is the people's fury will play its part. Bomb blasts are a nameless terror that do not ask who they kill. What happened in Mumbai was much bigger than that. The Jews at Nariman House were all gunned down, a Turkish couple was told they could leave because they were Muslim, and scores of women and children were found murdered on the floors of the Taj mahal hotel and the Oberai Trident Hotel. This is probably the first time in my time that the Armed Forces had to be called on to deal with domestic terror. Such was the preparedness and planning that these pigs had, and not to forget the arsenal of weapons, including military guns made by the Paki Army itself. And yet, we have the same country calling for a joint terror probe, because the Con'gress, in one gentle swoop to secure its Muslim votebank, said that the Pakis were victims of terror too.

I dont know which major politician played what part in letting this situation be where it is today, but I do hope to God that it gives democracy the power that great men have been clamouring that it has to bring about a change.

"only non violence doesn't work"

I don't seem to recognize India anymore. True, for me, this nation has always been one with millions of frustrated individuals that see themselves as victims of a system that denies them justice and dignity. People protesting on the streets against a decision, against an act, or against an individual are common, but what India is seeing right now is much more than that. We are downright blowing ourselves apart.

Bomb blasts in this country were not a norm, but 2007-2008 seem to be breaking all records. Every other day a blast occurs, the latest in Guwahati that has left more than 60 dead. The usual government rhetoric and crocodile tears always surface, but disappear just as quickly. Yet it all seems different. Now I feel the government, especially the current cabinet puppet show, ably controlled by Sonia Gandhi, is just too shamelessly blatant in its lack of action, or rather, a lack of desire to do anything about it.

I am scared for this country, I never thought i'd say it, but it seems everybody will start fighting with everybody soon. People can't stand up to that Thackk guy, Mamta bannerjee, a party that isn't ruling or hold any power, is able to drive India's largest business house away, and I get the idea that the ability of Indians to not react to crises is reaching epic proportions.

Everybody's having fun - blowing up markets, blowing up places of worship, beating up the poor and the innocent, and absolutely no punishments, absolutely none. India is turning into such a wonderland that after the Guwahati blasts, people actually burnt down a fire engine to protest! A goddamn fire engine! In Bihar, people burnt down a railway coach to protest Raj Thackk guy! What sort of a banana republic are we turning into! I always thought we had more law and order than a lot of other countries, but I am doubting my own beliefs now.

Found this nice article in International Herald Tribune. Usually I am apprehensive about posting foreign news on India, but I agree with a lot of what this writer has to say. Heck, he's quoting Yasin Malik, but for once, I agree with them all.

Want to be heard in India? You'd better form a militia

Not long ago, officials in this seaside megalopolis announced plans to retire taxicabs built before 1983.

But one union leader here didn't like it. Last week he ordered the drivers of 55,000 taxis to strike. A few hundred drivers, needing money, defied him. Strikers smashed dozens of their taxis. Meanwhile, a fleet of newer, air-conditioned taxis, unconnected to the striking union, operated as usual, until mobs attacked its cabs, too. Thousands of officegoers in India's financial capital were stranded.

Five days later, they were stranded again — but for a different reason. A local ethnic-baiting politician was arrested for inciting violence against north Indian migrants. Followers of his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, or MNS, party flooded the streets hurling stones and bottles, and taxicabs were smashed once again, this time because many are driven by north Indians.

From Mumbai to Bengal to the central plains, violence is achieving an exalted new status even by this region's bloody standards. Politically motivated beating and burning and killing, never wholly absent from the subcontinent, have become more than spasmodic human failings. They have started to replace hunger strikes, sit-ins and marches as the basic tools of Indian political life: guiltlessly deployed, fatally effective.

Forget what you've heard about Gandhi and nonviolence in India. This is a nation of militias now.

"Only nonviolence cannot work," said Sandeep Deshpanda, 34, vice president of the student wing of MNS. "Some people understand only when you kick them," he added, citing an old Hindi adage.

The MNS has come to symbolize this broader phenomenon. Earlier this year, its leader, Raj Thackeray, fired a verbal fusillade against migrants in Mumbai. Young party cadres fanned out and began to thrash migrants in the streets. Then he went after Mumbai stores that print their sign board in English but not in the local Marathi language.

His party is a minority in the state legislature; he runs no organ of state. Yet, as his cadres began to smash the windows of uncooperative stores, thousands of other stores tacked on Marathi signs. The city's appearance changed overnight.

Thackeray's successes evidently left an impression on 1,900 employees of Jet Airways, who were fired last week thanks to the global financial crisis. They rushed to Thackeray's office. He thundered that no Jet Airways flight would leave Mumbai until the employees were rehired.

"It is disturbing that workers of Jet Airways sought the help of the MNS when they were given the pink slip," The Times of India newspaper wrote in an editorial. "It is as if they were contracting the mafia to serve their private needs because they didn't have any other recourse."

Political theorists define sovereignty simply. What separates Jordan from Lebanon is a state monopoly on force. In sovereign countries, militias do not decide who drives taxis and doesn't, who is fired and isn't. If this is the definition, it is difficult to call India wholly sovereign today.

Tata, an Indian conglomerate, decided not long ago to build the world's lowest-cost car in West Bengal State. It got into a land dispute. Good arguments surfaced on each side. But arguments matter ever less. Goaded by yet another state politician without a majority, activists besieged the Tata plant, pelted stones at journalists and threatened workers. Tata left the state.

Meanwhile, Muslim extremists blow up markets, Hindu extremists slaughter Christians and politicians convene commissions.

Whatever its reputation, India has never exactly been a nation of pacifists. Gandhi represented just one strand of thinking, and his view is not the only one to have prevailed. From Kashmir's jihad to various secessionisms to Hindu-Muslim riots, political violence is as Indian as tandoori chicken. Yet in the past it was generally seen as regrettable by people with power. It was rarely a workaday tactic, the way hunger strikes are a tactic.

But in recent years the hollowing of the Indian political center has allowed violence be mainstreamed. The major national parties draw ever smaller fractions of the vote. Challenging them are caste-based and regional parties that narrowcast to electoral pockets. Factional identities are hardening as citizens "vote their caste rather than cast their vote," as a popular refrain puts it.

This political fragmentation pits tribe against tribe. It has corroded the faith among Indians that the institutions that hear and answer grievances — the police, courts, media — are neutral. All increasingly are seen as biased, answerable to their different masters, rather than impartial executors of the public good. All contribute to a growing sense of powerlessness. And so if you are a leader of a political faction that wants to be heard, it is not irrational to believe you need a militia of violent young men to make yourself heard.

Yasin Malik once commanded a militant group in Kashmir, waging war against India. Fourteen years ago, he surrendered his weapons and declared himself a "Gandhian."

"I'm in search of Gandhi in the land of Gandhi," he added. "I've failed to find him."

Happy Diwali!

Yesteday was Diwali. Its the day that marks the end of the year in the Indian calender, it was Vikram Samvat 2064, and marks the beginning of the Hindu new year. This is a very auspicious day for all, other than business schools I think, because for most of us, it is another day to reinforce the importance of hard work and education. I had two exams before the day, and three exams after the auspicious day. There will be plenty of opportunities to celebrate in our lives, but those were not yesterday.

That is not to say I am a disappointed wreck. I had lots of fun, a great dinner, took part in a Puja and burst firecrackers. Studying for the exams? Hmm, now that you mention it.............

Diwali is what turns around our market, with every trader praying to Lakshmi ji for her blessings. Of course, the run up to this Diwali has been brutal, and we could really use some divine intervention to sooth our wounded sentiments.

I was on the rooftop of the rooftop, a beautiful place on top of my hostel which commands the best view of campus and the best breeze on a beautiful evening, and taking in the scenery. There were rockets lighting the late evening sky all around me, and the bursts coming in from every direction, in every intensity. It was bright, noisy, and I hadn't felt such exhilaration in a very long time. You know, there are a lot of things about my country, my system and my society that frustrate me, and I too am giving to whining and bitching about anything and everything at times, but last night, sitting on top of my perch, everything seemed perfect. We really are a great nation with great traditions. In our pursuit of a lifestyle of others, let us never forget who we are and where we are coming from. The joy, the enthusiasm, the brightness and the sounds reminded me of all that, and I felt content. Its good to be home.

Desperate times call for......

This being summer internship season in many business schools, we get to hear from a lot of companies who visit our campus and tell us about themselves and what they are looking from us when they hire us.

So a very big iBank came visiting today to loud thumps, and reiteration of the love they had for us and our institute had for them. Eventually things moved onto what they do, and how they survived the markets and the sentiment. Things got interesting in the questions and answers round, and people had a lot of questions about the changes in their work culture now that they are under different regulatory control in the United States, because obviously things will be different. Somebody asked a question about the survival of the big western companies and the western governments coming together to save them, including buying their bad assets and taking stakes in them. The speaker remarked that desperate times call for desperate measures. That is when the thought struck me - There is a system that everybody believes in, and the system messes up. Now the believers of the system will go against the very tenets of the system to get back to the system that messed up.

Let me repeat it again, the believers of a system that fucks up will go against exactly what the system says to come back to the system.

Also, apparently President Sarkozy, in a 'summit' of great European powers, has called for a sovereign wealth fund of the European nations to fight back the "foreign predators." Who are the foreign predators? The people who the western man buys his oil from. I don't want to sound like a bleeding heart anti-globalization leftist, but I think this is exactly how i feel about the way western capitalism works - they will do business with the third world, but only on their own terms. How many instances can I line up - their stance at the WTO, their economic clarion calls against their good jobs going to the developing world, and now this - how dare Arab money enter the western bastions of economy and commerce, they are only good till their oil lasts.

Some economic system this. What I liked best about the presenter's words was when he said in reference to the world's economic scenario, that India will fight its battles, but not this way, and it will win it's battles. Amen to that.

we're going to the moon!

Wednesday, October 11, 2008

India has launched the Chandrayaan 1, our first unmanned mission to the moon. It was a textbook launch. In this doom and gloom surrounding our daily lives, at least the greatness of ISRO is a constant. God bless India.


Picking up data from the Mangalorean.com website:

India's maiden moon mission on track as rain stops

As the fully-loaded 44-metre-tall 316-tonne rocket, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C11) stood at the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota, off the Andhra Pradesh coast, 80 km north of Chennai, a meteorogical officer at the spot told IANS: "Though rain is likely at the launch, there is no cyclone threat forecast".

As the PSLV holds aloft the 1,380-kg lunar orbiter Chandrayaan, waiting for the ignition command at 6.20 a.m. Wednesday, the top brass of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) decided that "two or three hours before liftoff, met experts will analyse the weather data once again to ascertain possibility of lightning striking the rocket or the spacecraft", the official added.

Still very much within the earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft was sitting protected by the rocket's 3.2-metre bulbous heat shield Tuesday evening as the weather office in Chennai also told IANS that the chances of a cyclone affecting the launch were slim.

A confident S. Satish, director, Publications & Press Relations of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), told IANS: "Eighteen minutes into the flight the rocket will sling the spacecraft into the 255-km perigee (nearest point to earth) and 23,000 km apogee (farthest point from earth) path to script a new history in the annals of India's space odyssey,"

From there the spacecraft will be taken into more elliptical orbits, firing its onboard motor - technically called Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) - towards the moon, 387,000 km from the earth.

Once the spacecraft nears the moon, the LAM will be fired in reverse to slow it down to enable the moon's gravity to capture Chandrayaan into an elliptical orbit around the lunar poles.

Thereafter the spacecraft's orbit will be gradually lowered till it is 100 km above the moon's surface. That is expected to happen around Nov 8.

On Nov 14 the spacecraft will eject an important piece of luggage on to the moon's surface - the Moon Impact Probe (MIP).

The spacecraft cameras and other instruments that would do the intended tests for the next two years will be activated after that.

The 11 experimental instruments carried by the spacecraft are from different sources - five Indian, two from the US, three from the European Space Agency and one from Bulgaria - and each has a different purpose.

"Designing the spacecraft that would fit these pre-built instruments was a challenge which was overcome with Indian ingenuity," Mylswamy Annadurai, project director, Chandrayaan, told IANS.

Indian space scientists may not face such problems in Chandrayaan-2 as they can stipulate the payload specifications.

The Indian government has sanctioned Rs.4.25 billion for the second moon mission that is expected to happen sometime in 2011.

That mission will have the Russian Federal Space Agency as a partner which will provide the moon rover.

Looking forward India may plan missions to Mars, Venus, Mercury and also an asteroid or comet flyby mission.

finance, markets, banks, currency, debt, assets, risk......

As a business student, such words are supposed to on the tip of your tongue most of the times, and in an economic environment such as this, I have been spending a lot more time with these words, their sources, and their brothers and sisters.

"Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year." (Hamlet, Act III, Scene II)

I quote one of my favorite pieces of literature to contemplate about the fall of the global economic order. We're still feeling the reverberations, in fact, we've been feeling it a lot more since my last post. First the Americans took the hit, with their companies failing and merging and being nationalized, and then it spread to Europe! I use the exclamation mark because those guys seemed so much more socialist and regulated than North America, yet it looked to me that they took a much greater hit than the US. Anyways, both the "old world" and the "new world" (to quote a fallen neocon of President Bush's entourage), are doing what they have derided the developing world for indulging in for so long - nationalization. Its not the government's job to run banks and institutions, its not the government's job to take care of the market, but of course, you tell that to my innocent pet dog sitting at home and even he wont believe you. Well, what can I say, welcome back to the fold, friends, I guess!

I read this joke on the internet, that people still do not realize the gravity of the situation when a country like Iceland (given their size and importance on the global economic stage) can fail! Pardon the bad joke, but things do look bad. Millions of blogs are probably writing better and more details opinions about the whole thing right now, so let me try to just stick to my own thoughts.

On another note, all the market and investment hullaballoo has done nothing to mitigate the craze for investment banking in Indian business schools. I have had all the big banks you hear about in the news personally tell me (and my group of friends of course!) that everything is fine and they are still open for business and still offer you a great career and all that good stuff. Somehow, I doubt if the model of doing business (as one of the big banks told us) will not change. I think a lot of things will change, if the intention of the US Government and other world governments is right, and they have any intention of making things better in the long run, rather than just focusing on getting liquidity back into the markets at present and not focusing on the fundamentals. After all, apparently it takes two Goldman Sachs executives to do right the wrongs committed by their company. Talk about conflict of interest!

Anyways, the fundamentals need to change, and I think the western economic orders needs to change the way it does business. I mean, how much debt can the saving economies of the world provide to the west to live its luxurious lifestyle? The bad news is that the lust for the same lifestyle of living beyond ones means has snared countries like India and China, which are leading the consumption pack.

With my limited knowledge, I felt that the Indian economy was more than eager to embrace the American way even when they can see it front of their eyes that it can't be sustained, but hey, why wouldn't I want a Mercedes Benz?!

Anyways, I suppose globalization is the way to go, and not the one way globalization that we have seen, but the two way street that sees the exchange of money, ownership and sharing of resources. I have already griped on my blog so many times about how its perfectly acceptable for western companies to take over resources and markets in the third world but its perfectly unacceptable when an Indian takes over the white collar job of an American, for example. In fact, I am completely with India's stand on the WTO for that matter. Apparently the third world has no right to question America and Europe's massive farm subsidies, but we also have no right to question their insistence we open our markets for the same, jeopardizing our own agriculture in the process. Ha ha, this world isn't a fair place, it never was!

Lets not miss the silver lining here. The developing world is where its at, and I feel that the global economy is slowly losing its polarization, with us having a greater say and more leverage to take our decisions. And this is without India being any more capitalist than it currently is. Recently Jet Airways fired around 800 of its employees on probation because the company couldn't afford to keep paying them. The employees went to CITU, the commie trade union, and Raj Thackrey! It led me to believe that no matter where you go, violence is the only language that works in India. Apparently now he is the saint of the economically aggreived. Of course, they were hired back a few days later, because poor Naresh Chandra couldn't sleep at night after the decision! Of course, no pressure. No pressure at all.

The bottom line is, lets bask in the protectionist and old world economy of ours, folks, its the only system that seems to be working right now!

Commie Time!

It is so hard to resist reading or posting about the absurdities that the commies of India indulge in every day.

First things first, the Tatas are out of Singur. God bless the Common Man! What a great day against the capitalists, I say!
Now the Tatas will most probably park themselves in Kutch in Gujarat, close to the Adani port where they already have substantial stakes through their raw material import. Of course, let me add that this is only strongly rumored, and some parts of the media say that the official announcement will only be out in a week or two. In the meantime, media is giving good airtime to the efforts of the Karnataka CM in bringing Tatas to their land, the north to be precise, as well.

I guess the entire blogworld is following the collapse of Wall Street right now, and media is awash with news. The big news is that the fire has spread to Europe, and seems to be raging with equal intensity there. Fortis is a huge bank and insurer in West Europe, and just recently, has been nationalized by both the governments of the Netherlands and Belgium. Simiarly, Germany is looking to bail out its second biggest lender, Hypo Real Estate Holding, which could require almost $50 Billion in bailouts! Bradford and Bingley, a lender in the UK, has already been nationalised!

Sorry, so coming back to the crux of my post, here is some more hypocrisy by the commies

CPI-M takes mutual fund route for better returns

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and the Bombay Sensitive Index (Sensex) have never been mutually dependent.

But now the CPI-M is taking the mutual fund route to build its cash reserve even as global markets are in a tailspin and the US financial crisis is looking grim.

Even as the party continues to berate Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram for not taking the cue and being obsessed with stock markets, it hasn’t been able to entirely shun the lure of greater returns.

The income tax returns filed by the CPI-M from the year 2002 to 2006 shows a substantial income from interests and dividends.

When the markets were bullish in 2006 and the Sensex crossed 14000, the party got Rs 1.92 crore from interest and dividends and a good part of it were earnings from investments in mutual funds.

So why the doublespeak?

"I don't think there is anything wrong in party investing money in mutual fund because mutual funds give more interest than the banks. We have invested only in public sector," MK Pandhe, General Secretary, Centre for Indian Trade Unions, said.

Pandhe’s explanation is interesting given that the same logic of greater returns was rejected by the Left when the government decided to park 30 per cent of surplus funds of Navratna and Miniratna PSU's in equity-based mutual funds.

The Left Front was up in arms and their opposition to exposing employee provident funds to the vagaries of the stock markets is well documented.

"Without earning more, pension quantum will not be higher and that is what we are worried about," Pandhe explained.

Importantly the Left made substantial investments in the US-64 scheme of the UTI and like many others had their fingers burnt in US-64 fiasco of 2001.

But when it comes to money, the communists are also saying its money, honey.

ha ha, a bunch of bastards.

doom and gloom

before anything, just want to congratulate my team, Philadelphia Phillies, on winning the National League East division for the second year in a row. Now simply losing out in the playoffs and still calling it a great season will not do, and we must be at the top. If we win it all, of course, I will be crying tears of blood for not being in Philly at the time.

Coming to the other things, seems like the collapse of Wall Street, and the subsequent failure of the US bailout failing to clear their Congress has overtaken every other news. Of course, our own BSE fell around 6% because of the news, the worst hit being ICICI Bank, which is exposed to around 80 million dollars of bad assets, but in a fickle investor environment as ours, it is enough to kill investor confidence. In the meanwhile, Wachovia Bank, pretty big in Philly too, got brought out by Citigroup, after its shares fell around 90% in just two days. The stock was brought at a dollar! The only connection I have with Wachovia is that I had applied for their credit card, and got turned down. I thought at the time that it was because I wasn't a high net worth individual, or my good credit rating wasnt good enough for them, but I realize now that it was probably because I was a foreigner.

Anyways, even with all the news of economic doom around me, I keep hearing conflicting stories still. The one story I hear, in many variations, is that this is a cycle, and I read about the resilience of the 'free markets' to come back from the dead. Actually, I have heard a lot of iBankers call it a cycle, and how there is still lots of money in it. Of course, they're telling me that because I am training to be an MBA, and if my biggest priority in life isn't money, then there is something wrong with me. Anyway, that is not the point here. The point is that will things really change in the near future, will we see a paradigm shift in the way the western world, particularly the United States, does business? Or will things be back to normal and people will look back and laugh at 2008? I really cant say.

So what if Lehman Brothers failed? So what if Washington Mutual filed for bankruptcy. Its not as if large American corporations haven't failed in the past. Enron failed, so did Worldcom, so what is different this time? Maybe a lot. For one, AIG is one of the world's largest insurance companies, and it is being propped up by the government now. The biggest mortgage lenders of the country, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, are under government control, we have already seen three big mergers/takeovers, all of them government sponsored I may add, and finally, the big $700 billion dollar bailout which I hear may rise to over a trillion. Let me add the support systems that the European governments have set up to save their own lenders and institutions. Maybe things are changing for good, and people are actually calling for a change in the way the western world lives, but these calls have been made a lot of time before, and I am only posting them here for posterity.

So what happens to the India growth story? We still need capital, which may be squeezing out now for all the reasons, but the bottomline is that India is still growing and needs more money. So what happens to our own financial systems, and the way we run the economy? I dont know if we will see any major changes, and if the risk appetite of Indian companies is lessened by any degree, but it is still too early to call it the bottom of the market, as I heard an iBanker say, justifying their desire to buy into Indian real estate. Lets wait and watch, while the Tatas slowly shift out of Singur and set up plant elsewhere, most likely Pantnagar in Uttarakhand.

Since my last post

Since my last post -

Lehman Brothers have filed for bankruptcy
AIG would have done down too if the US Govt. hadn't pumped them up with money
Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America for $50 billion, much less than its actual value a few weeks ago
America's two biggest mortgage lenders are owned by the US Government
The US Congress is getting a $700 Billion package ready to take on people's bad mortgage assets
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley turn into commercial banks
Of the 5 big independent investment banks that were alive in January 2008, only two remain, and like I said, they've turned to commercial banks
The 7 developed nations have pledged whatever investment is necessary to keep the economies from running into trouble
The Investment Banker's Wall Street as we know it is dead.

The artificial world that Wall Street had been living in and had been luring investors from all over the world seems to have been exposed as empty, and now we should see the trend of people going back to the real economy - investments made on deposits, a more stable, long term appetite for risk and yes, a lot smaller bonuses for our chaps on Wall Street.

There are a lot of rules that had to be rewritten to allow the government to bring stability into the market, from changing British monopoly laws to allow Barclays to buy HBOS, a mortgage lender. How the mighty have fallen. For the past many years, the US government, and its influential multinational corporations, have been forcing developing countries to open up their financial sector to allow these companies to bring in the kind of business they do at Wall Street, or rather, did at Wall Street. They were horrified that how could the government be ever involved in the financial markets - the government had no right to regulate the markets so minutely and should leave.

So the US government is now back in the saddle, owning the two biggest mortgage lenders, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the Federal Reserve brokered the deal that allowed JP Morgan Chase to buy Bear Sterns, and the Government pumped billions to allow AIG to keep standing. And then the multi-billion dollar package that some call as a 'bailout', and some as necessary to keep the markets alive! 

What can I say, while the spate of bankruptcies is probably not over still, because this exotic securities, or as now they're called, toxic securities are in possession of a lot of companies, including ICICI, but fairly limited to $80 million. The artificiality of the markets will probably have to be flushed out, some semblence of order brought back in and it will take at least a few years before the markets really come out of this mess. Of course, I believe when the markets do come around, nobody will want to talk of toxic securities, they'll just be happy in trading in the ordinary, boring stocks that will give them less than half the return but have been surviving for many more years! 

Following up...

In my last post, I had said that I was, and were a lot of other people, eagerly awaiting the details of the outcome of the meeting between Mamata and Buddhadeb. Apparently, some sort of 'agreement' had been reached, and media channels had reported, and I had quoted one of them, some of the key points of the agreement, like returning a part of the land, I am still not sure the one that is under dispute or some other, and Mamata stopping the harrassment of Tata workers.

It turns out that the Tata's aren't happy at all with the way things have turned out, and the situation is back to being an impasse. Apparently I was mistaken in believing that a solution could be reached with only one meeting between the parties. I think the one meeting probably gave them the opportunity to exchange notes and get warmed up for finding a way out.

The Tatas have said that they do not want the government to disturb the autocluster in any way, but I hear conflicting reports that this is what the two parties had agreed to at Raj Bhawan.

I am reading today's Hindu, and it quotes the Industries Minister, Sanjay Nirupam, as saying some sort of 'final'deal has been signed.

The West Bengal government should not take any steps that will disturb the arrangement that ensures the integral nature of the auto-cluster, consisting of the mother plant and the vendor park, in the upcoming Tata Motors project site at Singur, company managing director Ravi Kant said on Tuesday in a letter to Industries Minister Nirupam Sen.

This was in reply to a letter by Mr. Sen to Mr. Kant on Monday that clarified the government’s position following the previous day’s talks with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and her associates on providing land to the “unwilling” farmers whose plots were acquired for the Tata Motors’ project.

“We would like to be clearly told about any future arrangements, understandings or commitments that will go contrary to the agreement, and which will result in not honouring the commitments [made to the Tata Motors earlier],” the letter said.

Amid this development, Ms. Banerjee reiterated that the agreement signed on Sunday in the presence of Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi “is final.”

She said:

“In it the government has decided to give maximum land [to the land-losers from whom plots had been forcibly acquired] from the project area and the rest from that adjacent to it [the project site].”

“It is a policy decision made before the Governor, which cannot be violated. We have no confusion on the matter. Both sides are signatories to the agreement.”

I think this is another great example of extremely inept political maneuvering by Indian politicians. They usually get themselves into a corner because of their focus on rhetoric that it leaves very little room for a solution that doesn't turn into a zero-sum game. Of course, considering that it is their Rs. 1500 crores and their employees, the Tatas are completely justified about voicing their concern for being shortchanged by the government. Already it seems to me that the two parties have already decided in their minds what outcome they will fight for, and will leave overlook mutual interest for the sake of their position. So, it seems the situation is back to square one.

I had this thought that cropped up in my head about heading to the city and actually try to be a part of this whole hoopla. This situation is being followed all over the world, and I am very, very curious and eager to experience the mood on the street. I know where the Raj Bhawan is, and I know I will see groups from both parties and a lot of media there. Perhaps I could simply linger around without getting into trouble and just try to get a grip of whats going on. Of course, an IIMC shirt would be necessary to give me some legitimacy and respect. Hmm, I should consider this, because I think this statemate will probably linger for a while.

The Nano Solution is here

A few days ago I had written about Mamata Bannerjee and Buddhadeb sitting down at Raj Bhawan with the Governer, Gopal Krishna Gandhi and trying to find a way forward. It is being reported now that there is indeed a solution to this mess, with the government willing to return around 200 acres to the 'disgruntled farmers' and Mamata Bannerjee calling off her 'agitation.'

Like most other people, I am awaiting the details, but I think I can be reasonably assured that we will probably be withheld the dirt and muck thrown around in that conference room. Both the parties involved must have traded a lot of changes, and also stated a lot of true facts about each other's motives and aims, but we will probably end up hearing a cleaned up version of how everybody wanted to get along and did it for the greater good of the glorious state of West Bengal.

Somehow I am not able to digest the lack of Tata's role in this whole faceoff, other than the threat to move out. Given that they are the biggest company in the country, surely they must be party to the meeting, but I am really surprised that Ratan Tata gave his threat and eventually flew to the US on a business trip, leaving one of his deputies, Ravi Kant, in charge of affairs.

IBNLive.com is reporting the solution to the dispute, and I quote...

The West Bengal government and the Trinamool Congress have reached a consensus on resolving the land dispute. Sources tell CNN-IBN a new compensation package has been worked out according to which the government is likely to return around 200 acres of land in and around the factory to “unwilling farmers”. A committee will be set up to look into the land dispute.

Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, who leads protests against the car factory, will call off her agitation in 24 hours as part of the deal with the government, sources say.

CPI leader D Raja told CNN-IBN the West Bengal government had offered a “meaningful dialogue” to solve the dispute. “This is a lesson for not only for West Bengal government but for all governments. When land is acquired for a project, consensus has to be arrived at. You have to win the confidence of people and of political parties,” he said.

There, we can see CPI ass D Raja giving us a totally meaningless and pointless statement that yes, when we acquire land, we must ensure that a consensus has to be arrived at. I am sure I've heard it from every politician's mouth who has been burnt by their overzealous taking over of land for a friendly corporation.

I had posted earlier that most probably Tata's threat to move out will bring the netas to realize they've probably gone too far, and it has happened. What I am really curious to find out now, is how long will the people of West Bengal, and particularly the people of the affected areas, remember what has just transpired and when the election comes and vote with some sense. For all I know, both the parties will spin this issue into their moral victories. Mamata will go to town how she brought the big bad Tata to their feet and finally got land back for the dispossed farmer. The Commies will go to town talking about the lengths they will go to, to protect and invite industry into the state. You know, I can see this all play itself out in the coming months, and I am pretty sure that the common man, glad to finally be back on track, will probably forget about this all, blame it on his/her kismat and move on.

after rhetoric, some harsh realities?

So everybody's been protesting and threatening lately, of course, led by Mamata Ban-her-jee. She and her party had been screaming off the top of their lungs, they have been blocking Tata workers from entering the factory premises, they set up barriers on the Durgapur highway and told the High Court that they havent, and basically calling for Ratan Tata to give up the 400 acres of land that he 'stole'.

It seems that Mr. Tata will finally be calling their bluff. Let me add that I think that Mamata was under the impression that since the Tatas had already spend Rs. 1500 crores on the project, they would not even think of leaving. You know, I don't know a lot of things in life, but I have studied some microeconomics here, and I know a sunk cost when I see one. The Tata's have spent this money and will not get it back, so there is no point crying about it and move on. Also, I think quite a substantial amount of their equipment can be salvaged. The tatas can take a hit of Rs. 1500 hundred, leave with their entourage and start shop in some other part of the country and deliver Nano to every part of the world. But what will West Bengal do. Mamata bannerjee has the loudest bark, but I doubt her ability to bite. Already, the Commies and Mamata are asking Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the Governer, to intervene and mediate this issue. This is the same Gandhi that the Commies so hate for getting under their collective skin for varied reasons. I have already mentioned about Mamata saying that she doesn't want the Tatas to leave, she only wants the land back. Cool, she has the same mentality as the commies - they don't owe anything to anybody, but everybody owes them something. Word is that the parties are meeting on Friday to try to find a way forward.

I don't even need to write about the agitations FOR the Singur project. The industry has spoken for it, the intellectuals are speaking for it (!), but maybe it is too late? Mamata Bannerjee has already murdered a poor daily wager who committed suicide because the work at the plant has stopped. On who'se head will his blood be? Given this medieval system we live in, I think he is simply a casualty of war, and the people involved will simply forget about it after trading charges.

Its not that the Left have stopped making moves. According to Business Standard, they have sweeted their deal to the owners of the 400 acres. According to the site -

The package was likely to offer a bundle of options like enhanced compensation, annuity scheme and some sort of job assurance for one member from each distressed family.

The issue of alternative land could also be brought to the negotiating table if the opposition wanted it and the government would try to accommodate that request to the extent possible, said a source.

When one plays Poker and ever gets in a situation in which you have put a lot of money into a bad hand, most times it is very difficult to simply back out and cut your losses. This quicksand that the politicians of West Bengal have gotten their people and their state into, will probably not be solved with more money and more incentives. Mamata's stand is "land for land", and she will not want to accept the offer for money or alternate land and be seen as backing down from her position. Of course, there is no issue of the commies giving up in the fight. They are planning their anti-Mamata campaign.

Looking at the big picture, the debate has started on what is in store for the state after this, and how has this issue, whatever its resolution may be, affected the image, the policies and the sensibilities of this country as a whole. A newspaper quoted an American businessman as saying if the Tatas fail in West Bengal, how could they succeed? A very legitimate question. One of India's most revered, powerful and rich companies seems to be getting ready to give up and pack its bags and start elsewhere. Of course, i am not implying that the Tatas should stay and fight, as businessmen, they are not there for that, but like I said, for the sake of the future of West Bengal, there needs to be a positive outcome of this whole episode. In these fights, the people on the ground are the real losers, and unfortunately, they aren't even a factor anymore, despite what some politicians will tell you.

The wheel of Karma

What is going on in Singur, West Bengal is so convoluted that my fragile mind has absolutely refused to make any sense of it.

Suddenly there are many parties involved, and over the past few weeks, Mamata Bannerjee has been breathing more fire than ever before. Ratan Tata says that he will move, while his workers are roughed up and his under-construction plant is under siege.

I racked my brains and the internet to think of the reasons why would the Tata's decide to set up the Nano factory in West Bengal in the first place. The one most important reason I could come up with was the absolute support guaranteed by the Communist party of the state. Of course, political risk is a very important factor for any company, and perhaps one could say that West Bengal is a 'shining' example of political stability, with the commies having in power for almost three decades. I don't want to go into how they have stayed in power for so long, but lets just say that Ratan Tata probably didn't have to think twice about political stability, and the communists' near dictatorial powers in the state ensure that the Tatas can get done whatever they desire.

Thats the good part, with everybody agreeing, except when the Communists started applying their near-dictatorial powers to gather land for the project. And thats where Mamata Bannerjee comes in. I hear that more than half of the affected farmers had accepted the package offered by the government for their land, which the state government claims in one of the best in the country, and had duly registered themselves in the employment list created by the Tatas. These people would be employed by the Tata's in the new factory. Yet there is a lingering 400 acres (of the total 1000 acres) that the state government gave to the Tata's, against the wishes of the farmers who did not want to part with them. Now Mamata Bannerjee has risen as their Joan of Arc.

I've written so much already without actually coming to explain the title of my post. For anybody who has been living in India or has been following India news in any part of the world for the past few years will have read about the blackmails and browbeating by the Communists during their support of the UPA Government. They stalled reform packages, stopped companies from setting up projects, constantly threatened to withdraw support, and thanks to their reign of terror, the pusillanimous government was reduced to an ineffective, passive entity that stopped short on important reforms and refused to take action on important issues of the economy and national security. Such is the Communists' love for the farmer and the common man.

The sweet irony is that Mamata Bannerjee is showing the same love for the farmer, and the Communists, for a very welcome change, are on the receiving end. Again, the hallmark of the Communists' gameplan has been to stall the progress of a 100 people to benefit 10. Thats what seems to be happening at Singur, and no end seems to be sight, with the now de facto leader, Mamata, refusing to talk. Of course, not that the Communists are innocent here. As their Somnath Chatterjee episode will reflect, I think the commies sometimes forget that they live in a free world, where the people rule. It is just not acceptable for any government to forcibly take over a citizen's land when they don't want to part with it, without due process.

Meanwhile, the repercussions are being felt all across the industry. Mukesh Ambani, meanwhile, has come in favor of the Singur Project, because it is a great step forward for industry. Already, a few states have stepped up the efforts to get the Tata's to relocate to their state. There is talk that the Tata's will activate plan B, that of producing the Nano from their plant in Uttarakhand.

What I am unable to understand is why the Tata's are refusing to part with the 400 acres, or are there any other alternatives to giving cash to the farmers who do not want to give up their land? Can they be provided alternate, equally cultivable land? The Tatas have a lot to lose too, no doubt, but what happens to the Commie push to bring industry into their state? I say let it suffer like they have made India suffer. I know its like shooting myself in the foot because it is still my nation and my people, but I sure would like to see the Commies be debilitated so their future transgresses can be checked.

1-0-2

Anybody who'se been following whats been transpiring in Indian sports will know what I am talking about when they look at my title.

So India's best performance in the Olympics has been a gold and two bronzes. Its funny how unattainable a gold seemed when we reached the silver after two straight olympics of Bronzes, and how a gold and two bronzes seems like pittance.

But thats a very good thing, because it shows that our appetite seems to have been whetted. Now that the individual gold is under the belt, people want more, and more importantly, people know it can be done.

I haven't been following cricket at all, India is currently playing Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, and to tell you the truth, I really didn't even try to watch a match or even the highlights. Maybe its the MBA school effect, but more than that, i am sure is was our expectations in the Olympics.

I know I hated the games because of the entire hyprocricy involved in the entire thing, this supposed to be China's coming out party and all that bull, and as expected, nothing like that has happened. Whoever said that China would be forced to be more human rights friendly because of the games was probably paid by the Chinese to say so or was a naive little deer.

Anyways, with the Commonwealth Games coming up in New Delhi in 2010, our athletes will be kept on their toes, probably in the same, substandard training facilities our great nation has to offer them, and then it will on to London 2012. In between will the Asian Games in 2010, I think again in China.

Nothing would make me happier to see India high up in the medals tally in 2010 and 2012, but what I would rather see is a revolution in Indian sports that drives away all the netas from the sports associations and all players and athletes forming player associations that will turn an individual sportsperson into a stronger body with a stronger voice. Thats the only way to fight the system.

I salute our sportsmen who fight opinions and judgements to focus on their game and give it their best. This nation can take nothing away from you guys. You guys are heros, all of you who wear the India logo on your chest.

UPA's Kandahar Excuse

I have had many posts on this blog about the inability, or unwillingness, of the current UPA government to fight terror with conviction and effectiveness. Much of my material was without numbers and without instances, and I am happy to read Shekhar Gupta, the Chief Editor of The Indian Express, expressing the same views as mine, and perhaps a lot of other Indians.

It is not just the absolute absence of convictions, breakthroughs in terrorism and anti-Indian activities, but the extreme incompetence that the UPA seems to be going on about it. If I had to put my money on a theory, I would put it on the Congress's classical political strategy of minority appeasement. We've seen it in their economic policies, both at the center and the Congress ruled states, and we are seeing it in the political arena.

If a terrorist murders numerous Indian citizens but is not convicted because he/she belongs to a minority community and their conviction 'might' hurt the religious sentiments of the community, I think the government should be convicted first of traitorship. Why just minority appeasement, but the Government's record in handling the Naxals, the insurgency in the North-East, are all lacking in many ways.

This country will pay with its blood if these terrorists headquartered at 10 Janpath, New Delhi are allowed to be in power again. Terrorists will hit this country with a greater force than before and the Con'gress practice of associating inaction against terrorism with minority votes will only be strengthened, and many, many more lives will be snuffed.

Internal insecurity - Shekhar Gupta, The Indian Express

For nearly five years now the world media had been celebrating India’s rise. From the state of its stock market to its demographic advantage, from the strength and depth of its democracy to the vast reservoir of talent that flourished in its diversity, it was as if the world could see nothing wrong with India. There are now signs that some of that is changing.

And no, it is not just because of those thousand-rupee bundles displayed in the Lok Sabha. It is because of something much more serious, in fact a failure so serious it could, by itself, lose the UPA the next election. These four and half years are the worst in India’s history of fighting terrorism. Surely somebody in the UPA will bring out statistics to show that overall deaths were more in some other regime’s five years. But this is not just about numbers. It is a spectacular four and a half years of mayhem when not one terrorist has been caught, not one major case solved. Even by the modest standards that Shivraj Patil’s home ministry may have set for itself, this is a spectacularly disastrous record.

Last week, Somini Sengupta of The New York Times quoted a stunning fact from a report of the Washington-based National Counter-Terrorism Centre. It said, between January 2004 and March 2007, India had lost 3,674 lives to terrorism, second only to Iraq. And we can’t even claim that this is happening because some imperialist occupation army is running amok here. In fact that number, by now, must have crossed 5,000. If this notion spreads globally, it would do more to damage India’s image as an oasis of democratic stability, pacifism and economic growth than any twists in its politics, or even a half-decade reform holiday.

So far the UPA government has had one standard response: compare this with the record under the NDA: Kandahar hijack, Parliament attack, Akshardham. But there is a short use-by date on these arguments. You cannot take them into your next election campaign. Soon enough, the memory of those incidents would have faded, been replaced by new ones: Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kabul, Mumbai trains, Samjhauta Express and so on. And then the unchecked Naxalite attacks.

Most amazing is the sense of cool with which this government, particularly its home ministry, has responded to these losses. While they can pretend that Naxalite strikes are some sinister happenings in places that are out of sight, out of mind, somebody — most likely the voter — will soon remind them that, while those managing internal security may not care for the lives of policemen in faraway states, never in the history of insurgencies have we suffered casualties like these.

It is rare for security forces to suffer double-digit casualties in insurgencies. Even during the Kargil conflict it was a rare day’s fighting on which the army lost so many lives, against an entrenched foreign army. The two most striking things here have been the equanimity — frankly, cynical and sometimes sanctimonious indifference — with which this security establishment has treated it.

The talk of Naxalism in a week when two of our most important cities saw serial-bombings and a third had 23 unexploded bombs recovered, is not a digression. It underlines the unmoving, thick-skinned, incompetent and pusillanimous response to terror from this government. What is worse, it is even politically loaded. And while, ultimately, the UPA may be made to pay for it electorally, too many lives are being lost meanwhile, and too much damage is being done to India’s image. The government cannot ride out an entire five years claiming that their predecessors’ record was worse.

Over the past year or so we have all got focussed on what we saw as the communalisation of our foreign policy: don’t vote against Iran at the IAEA because our own Shias would get upset, don’t sign the nuclear deal with Bush as that will irritate all our own Muslims, conduct your relations with Israel by stealth for the same reason, even stop the two missile development projects with them, no matter how badly your armies may need them. Last week we saw the prime minister fight back on this, and successfully too. But can he do the same with internal security?

Then, the same “communalised” politics interfered in police investigations following the serial blasts in Mumbai trains and Hyderabad. Ask senior police officers there — even Congress chief ministers if they’d dare to speak the truth — and they will tell you how they pulled away in fright, under pressure from the Centre for targeting and upsetting Muslims (voters) in their investigations. This proceeded neatly alongside the utterly communalised discourse on the Afzal Guru hanging issue. Each time this government and its intellectual storm-troopers proffered the minority argument in support of this soft policy, it emboldened the terrorists. They figured they were dealing with a political leadership which had already committed a self-goal by equating counter-terror with Muslim alienation and which had, in the process, totally demoralised its intelligence agencies and police forces.

And if it is not guilty of communalising our internal security policy, how does it explain sitting on special anti-terror laws in all BJP-run states when exactly similar ones have been passed for the Congress states? Now you can say special laws are good or bad, but they must be equally so for all citizens in all states. If these laws are good, or necessary, then citizens in BJP-run states have as much need — and right — to get their protection as those in the Congress states. Unless the message is: you want protection, you better vote for us. You vote for others, you are on your own.

now the BJP and Congress want to play games

I usually try to follow the Indian Economy thread of BR to catch up on my economic news and maybe get some deeper insight into some of the economic events I hear around me. The last few days have seen a few posts talking about the Congress pressing ahead with reforms now that they have shaken off their boyfriend, the Left, and some expressing hope that the BJP will support them because they had always asked for reforms in the first place, and some expressing their concern that since there was such bitter blood created between the two in the aftermath of the confidence vote, the BJP will play hardball.

There is plenty of news about the government and opposition "may, might, could" do in the near future.

Being an aam aadmi, of course I don't know whats going on, but hopefully we will know the status of things in the near future. already, some key happenings have occured, but not too circulated in the generic Indian media. The first is that the government has finally ended the monopoly of the SBI in managing the Employee Provident Fund Organization. There are crores and crores of rupees of all big and small, high and low government employees being managed by SBI. Now the Government has invited three private companies to manage part of the pot too.

Another newsitem from the Hindu Business Line says that Disinvestment process may gain speed. This includes offloading stakes in NHPC and Damodar Valley Corporation. Among other things is the plan to open up the insurance sector to 49% from the current 26%.

While some report that the BJP may "test" the government on reforms, others say that BJP ready to support economic reforms.

You'd think that maybe the dust would settle down after the horse fair would get over, but theres always surprises around the corner in India. The government, my feeling tells me, will push reforms, but maybe back down from the major reforms as usual because of the approaching elections.

Here is what I am trying to an answer to - Why does it always have to be that the most important economic reforms are also 'apparently' anti-vote banks? Why are the votebanks of Indian democracy always disadvantaged? And will some of these groups ever figure out what their netas are actually upto?

UPA show on for some more time

Thanks to the help from Samajwadi Party and many cross-voters and abstainers, the UPA government has survived the no-trust vote and managed to get rid of the Left at the same time, never mind the usual democratic processes of horse trading. The BJP and Mayawati are sulking, BJP has expelled most of its cross-voters, and as for the Left, well, lets hope they just disappear into nothingness. The past four years have been nothing but a spectacle of blackmail, browbeating and holding the economy to ransom.

The markets have taken this win very positively, the Sensex has touched the 15,000 mark, and for all the gloom and doom of the previous months, there is hope that finally the UPA government will start doing what it said it would do on the economic front. I doubt that though, that a few more months left in office will be enough to the blunders they have committed in the past four years. I have already said that while the sun was shining, the government failed to make hay, be in terms of oil security or bringing down the subsidy bill. In fact, they added many more billions to it.

PC has said that he will push forward with the financial sector reforms, and everybody, I am sure, is just hoping that this will maybe, just maybe, sooth the fragile nerves of our fickle market. Lets not forget that the crude prices have been declining, and even though the markets still ended in the red today, the more than 5% rally in 5 days seems like a good sign because even this break was due to profit selling.

Coming back to the topic, can the UPA really deliver in its last leg? Can it make up for the lost opportunities and mistakes of the past years? Of course, the headline of their tenure, the Nuclear deal with the US, is going full steam ahead. I just found this article on what the Con'gress is upto in New Delhi!

Cong floats 'nuclear balloon' as panacea for aam aadmi woes

What chocolate is to love, balloon is to joy. Kilos of air trapped inside sheer, colourful rubber, the floating toy can easily evoke a squeal of joy from a fretful child, even enthuse a grandfather.

But the giant balloon posted below the tamarind tree outside the Congress party headquarters on Akbar Road, is less an expression of joyfulness, more a statement of intent, a peepshow into the party's electoral mindscape.

Almost as tall as a giraffe, the synthetic balloon is dressed in the Congress colours of saffron, white and green, the same as the national flag minus the Ashok Chakra. But interestingly, another balloon, in the shape of an atom is wrapped over the original inflated object.

On one side is written in bold letters: Sasti bijli, sabko bijli, parmanu bijli karar (Cheap electricity, electricity for all, nuclear electricity deal). Obviously, the N-deal will be packaged as the key to cheap electricity in the Lok Sabha polls whenever they are held.

This seriously takes away a lot of my enthusiasm for the UPA victory, because if they really believe that nuclear power will take care of most of the 'aam aadmi's' need for power, I don't know how many nuke plants they will have to put up in all parts of the country in such a short period of time that it brings back political gains. The power policy has never taken off, and till they take care of that, nothing can happen. If they are expecting to sell very cheap electricity because it is nuclear energy, I think they will again be adding crores to our already loss-making energy production setup.

Also, I came across this particle about two Wall Street biggies doubting the government's ability to deliver. I will have to be critical of my own choice here because I doubt the ability of Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to advise on economic issues after the ruckus that's been on at Wall Street. Anyways, since they are still big, still American, so still prone to advising the world, so i'll post it

Govt's ability to push reforms under cloud

Amid an euphoria that government would now push ahead economic reforms after winning the trust vote in Parliament and parting ways with Left parties, two of the most influential global financial majors, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup have expressed their doubts on this front.

In a report published after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-led government won the trust vote earlier this week, Goldman Sachs noted that India would now have an opportunity to pursue stalled reforms, but the administration would have to deal with several difficulties in carrying out the process.

In a separate report, global financial services major Citigroup said that it remains to be seen whether UPA would be able to put reforms on the fast track or not.

"But whether it will be able to put reforms on the fast track and clear all the pending legislation is not a given as especially in politics, there is no free lunch," Citigroup economist Rohini Malkani said.

Outlining five factors that could "impede its ability to enact reforms successfully," Goldman Sachs said that the little time available for the government to complete its full term and need to placate and meet demand of allies who supported the regime in the next General Elections and the populism that may entail.

Fourth, the acrimonious discussions that took place between UPA and the opposition, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party, could lead to difficulties in passage of important bills.

no left? Do right.

Now that the UPA government has no excess communist baggage to hold it down, it apparently wants to get a lot of things done while it is still in office. Apparently, I am hearing the disinvestment word after 4 entire years! Hopefully some policy decisions will help prop up the fast deteriorating economy as well. Like I have said before, simply playing with the rates and twiddling with the monetary policy will not achieve much when the basic structure remains the same.

The UPA is betting big on coming through in the trust vote on July 22nd. Samajwadi party is of course demanding its pound of flesh, and as an image tool, as apparently asked for the sacking of several key people including the Indian Ambassador to the US and the Finance Minister himself! And a communist leader made a comment during a rally that each horse that is being wooed is being paid Rs. 25 crores to vote for the government. Who said democracy came cheap?

North Block to fast-track reform

Soon after the trust vote in Parliament on July 22, the finance ministry hopes to push through a series of non-legislative reforms, chief among them disinvestment of minority stakes in around 10 central public sector undertakings by listing them on the stock market.

The ministry may also separately consider a further relaxation in external commercial borrowing norms for the current financial year, senior officials told Business Standard today.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram has asked officials in his ministry to draw up a reform agenda that can be pushed through in the days after the trust vote is cast in Parliament, the sources added.

The government is expected to take advantage of the exit of the Left to push through various legislative reforms in insurance, telecom and pensions.

But given that these will take time to pass through Parliament, the government is betting on several non-legislative reforms that can be pushed earlier.

A meeting to discuss the disinvestment through public issues was held earlier this week and the details like the number of companies, the issue size and the timing will be finalised soon, added officials.

Earlier reports had suggested that the government may divest 5-10 per cent of its equity in around 24 companies such as Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd and Manganese Ore (India) Ltd, Nuclear Power Corporation, Railtel and TCIL, among others.

Officials said the earliest date for the issues to hit the market is September, by which time stock market sentiment is expected to improve. Capital inflows could also improve by then as global crude oil prices stabilise and the domestic price situation eases.

"A few good state-owned companies hitting the market will improve sentiment. In any case, the macro-economic fundamentals of the India story remain strong. We believe foreign institutional investors will see this and reverse the recent trend of exiting the Indian market. Domestic investors are also increasingly playing an important role in the stock market," the officials added.

Roar no more for the economy

I don't need to repeat again and again what's being said all around about our economy, which again shows deep signs of distress after this week's (July 12, 2008) inflation and industrial growth numbers came out. Business Standard calls it a black friday, because while our inflation rose from 11.63% to 11.89%, now inching close to the 12% mark as you can see, and our industrial growth, compared year on year, fell from 10.6% to 3.8%. Already the RBI has raised the CRR and Repo rate to 8.75% and 8.5% respectively, and that will definitely put more pressures on our industries.

Also, India's sovereign ratings might be lowered from the current investment grade of BBB. So all in all, the government is fully prepared, and in the process of implementing its full monetary policies to reign in inflation by taking money out of the economy. Also, the lowering of investment grade rating will take away a lot of foreign money from the markets as well. Already, the market cap of BSE has lots a few billion USD over the past months, and it fell below the country's GDP. However, that may also mean that the country's stock market is currently undervalued, which shows its a time to buy, but I think India as a economy is very vulnerable to speculation and market runs. Already a lot of small Indian investor money is going out of the market, and now we may see a flight of FII's as well.

Anyways, I just regurgitated whats on the media, but what I need to again rant about is the lack of a fiscal front in our fight against inflation and other recessionary tendencies. You will notice that the only leverage the RBI gets is to play around with the rates, but there are two fronts on which inflation is fought - the monetary and fiscal fronts. However, in the case of India, the fiscal measures are totally absent, and rightly so, because to implement fiscal measures here would mean a government will have to be headstrong and committed to reforms, but thats too much to ask. Even for a government which once boasted of being led by Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram and assisted by MS Ahluwalia, I think they have been utter failures on the economic front.

I don't remember any major fiscal/economic measure coming out of Chidambaram's budgets. He has only been following the Sonia Gandhi line of thought - more sops for minorities and all the vote banks that matter, put money in projects like the NREGS, which by the way is now a pan-India scheme, which has been reporting of intense corruption and incompetence in many parts of the country, including Bihar and Orissa. I think the government pushed it as a vote bank generator rather than an actual well-planned, well-thought and well-executed project. Its suffering from corruption, and lack of funding and lack of administrative capacity.

Then there is the Chidambaram whammy in the fourth year of the Con'gress, or the UPA government, a loan waiver of Rs. 60,000 crores for the rural farmer. The debate is still open on this one, because there have a number of issues raised, including the lack of institutionalized credit system in most rural parts of the country, thus still forcing the farmer to borrow from the local money lending entities. Of course, since they don't have a government loan, they will still be under heavy debt, and I think this number is huge. Then there is the criticism that it is unfair to all the farmers who actually worked hard to pay off these debts, and they will get absolutely nothing to show for it.

I believe even this is a massive exercise in trying to corner the rural vote. Indian agriculture does not need loan waivers, it needs the government to enable the rural agriculturalist to successfully pay their debts and actually make money. Amply wiser after my Indian economic history class, I know that Indian agriculture suffers from deep, and old failures which have existed for decades, and unless they are taken care of, Indian agriculture will never pick up. India never took up land reforms in a planned way, or rather, left open so many loopholes that took away the former's effectiveness effectively (!). Similarly, India never pushed for education in the rural masses, thus the farmers were still at the mercy of the rural rich, who were the traditional owners and lenders.

Indian agriculture does not need loan waivers, and the rural populace does not need massive subsidies and doles. India needs a second green revolution and nothing less to bring our farmer into the growth story. Similarly, education needs to be pushed with a greater gusto in all levels of the population. Its embarrassing to think that we need to get our basics right even after 6 decades of independence, but I believe that India is still not being able to rise to its potential only because a lot of its fundamentals need to be looked at again.

This may be the proverbial downturn in the business cycle and we might get out this economic downturn, but I do hope that this forces the people to take a deeper look at our policies, about how we work, and try to do something about it. With the elections around the corner, the UPA getting rid, or rather dumped by their old girl friends and strutting around with a new one, probably will try to achieve a lot more than they achieved in their past four years, but I believe India has suffered one of the worst four year periods with this circus in power.

Kabul Embassy contd.

I couldn't finish my thoughts in my previous post, so i'll just try to put down the few remaining thoughts that I have on this issue.

Its not that my concerns rise after this tragedy, the fact is that Indians working in Afghanistan have been targetted much more frequently in the recent past than before. Our construction workers and engineers have been kidnapped and a few murdered, but I think that really didn't spur our government to do anything. Heck, if an attack on the Parliament and blasts in Jaipur and Mumbai can't make these politicians grow some spine, then what are the innocent citizens in Afghanistan!

Maybe such a high profile assassination, with a clear intent, according to me, will actually prompt the government to relook at our policy in the country. I don't mean in the way of pulling out or cutting down on any commitment, but the fact that we really can't have only our civilians working there with the constant threat to their lives, and the present level of forces there are very, very inadequate. I read a news report that the US Army is the one that first cordoned off the area and was part of the investigation.

The fact is that maybe this bombing will force this incompetent government to maybe sit down and see where this nation is heading in terms of its ability to protect itself from armed aggression both within and without the country. For too long have our governments been quiet on terrorism and other acts against the state for fear of hurting the sentiments of our minorities and other groups. It is indirectly saying that our Muslims (as is the most common case) support traitors and enemies of the state. I really don't know who the UPA government is trying to impress with its pusillanimity. Maybe its calculated, I don't know, but hopefully the people will realize we need stronger decision makers at the helm before we really lose out on this opportunity to be a strong nation.

suicide attack on the Indian embassy

Earlier this week, suicide bombers in Afghanistan rammed a vehicle laden with explosives into two cars entering the gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul. The two diplomatic vehicles had two of the most high profile diplomats at the embassy - the Defense Attache Brigadier Ravi Datta Mehta and Counsellor V Venkateswara Rao. They both lost their lives.

In addition, two other Indians, both Jawans from the ITBP, and 37 Afghan nationals were killed and 141 other individuals injured. Nobody has claimed responsibility for this dastardly act, but the Afghan interior ministry did not waste time in hinting at the involvement of the perennial pain for world peace, Pakistan. Of course, Pakistan did what Pakistan always does - deny it outright. After all, an unstable Afghanistan is not in Pakistan's interest!

Of course, the UPA government is "shocked" at this act, and condemns it in the strongest of terms. The Defense and Foreign ministers had an emergency meeting with their officials, and they promptly sent a team to Kabul. The usual talk of India not backing down from doing good work in Afghanistan is making the usual rounds, and I am really no expert in diplomacy to point at other factors, but I can try to think of some of them.

Assassinating two high profile officials together tells me that this was probably in planning for a long time, because the execution had to be precise. In addition, I believe that there could be insiders involved in the plan as well. There are long lines at the Indian embassy every day of Afghans seeking a visa to India. They were not the target. There are other important offices on the same road, and they weren't targeted. In fact, I read in a report that the terrorist's vehicle didn't even try to enter the embassy, it was headed straight for the defense attache's vehicle. This tells me that the Pakis have got to be involved in this, and that there was something deeper here. I don't want to go hunting for sensitive information, but it is no secret that India is one of Afghanistan's best allies, and this is not a War on Terror phenomenon. India and Afghanistan have been good friends long before that, and after the Taliban came into power there, India's influence was limited to supporting the Northern Alliance, whose one prominent leader was Ahmad Shah Masood. The NA was recognized by the UN, by the way, and the only country that actually recognized the Taliban were our immediate friends in the West.

Now that India is again making inroads into the country, there will be a lot of consternation in others minds, but India, in its new status as a nation with certain influence and power, needs to do what it needs to do in the country. We have probably done more for the nation without sending our security forces there than all the NATO armies. But this attack makes me think that maybe India should send a few forces there because it seems that the Taliban and ISI want to take it to the next level. Sure, I dont know if our present government have the balls to take any strong military decision, but I think its high time they did something good for the country before they are hopefully thrown out of power.

Rememberances and Movements

Before I begin to say anything, I am really surprised that its been a month since my last post! In some ways it seems longer than that, and in some ways, it feels it was way shorter than that. I will come to that later, but before that, I want to remember one of India's greatest sons - Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, who passed away at the Wellington Military Hospital in Tamil Nadu.

For those who believe in this nation's armed forces, and those who cherish its traditions and history will know of this man, who, even for me, seemed so immortal that I had hoped he just won't die, or rather, I just kept hoping God will keep pushing his death forward. Similar to my wishes for Lata ji and a few other people.

The General has left us a legacy, left us some of our finest moments in history, and I know that he is gone, but his legend will live. Newspapers and television stations have been running stories from his past, including his childhood, his life during the World Wars, but most particularly, his relations with the Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

The fact is that Sam Bahadur was not just our general during that time. He was a leader during the 1962 war as well, the war we fought with people who Nehru gave up the permanent seat in the UN for.

Nehru's foreign minister was Krishna Menon, and he was no friend of the General. The latter was thus not in the good books of Nehru as well because of Nehru's proximity to Menon. Thus, from being almost axed, he was sent to the frontier when the Chinese drones attacked. Thus the ceasefire was enforced.

Then India's preperations for the '71 war and all that happened before and after it should be essential reading for all of us. The General and Mrs. Gandhi was two of the biggest personalities ruling India at one single time. She even feared he would take over the country during the emergency.

We will mourn his death, but it will cease, but his actions and his life will inspire us forever.

It seems difficult for me to talk about anything else in this post, but the fact is that I have been traveling, moved to a new city, Kolkata, and gone back to college. Things will come my way in heavier and more difficult doses, but nobody said an MBA would be easy. I don't expect it to be. And that is why I said the one month seemed so long. But at the same time, I have also had fun, had some happy moments and some very relaxed moments. Maybe thats why it seems small.

So now I write from the East.

so how's the weather been?

Actually, the weather's been pretty good in Dehradun I would say. It rained in plenty last few weeks, and then we had a few warm days, and it rained again today, although it was more of a tropical downpour. The weather's cool again; although I think it'll probably get hot again tomorrow.

See, this rain's nice for all of us, but it just isn't normal. There's supposed to be a summer for the most of this world, and with this erratic weather I have been seeing all over the world, I am beginning to wonder if global warming's really going to hit us a lot earlier than most of us anticipate.

I'm somewhat of a pessimist when it comes to Mother Nature. I just don't trust the human race to really get on its ass to try to save the world. For one, the developed world hasn't been changing its lifestyle at all. Oil's at an all time high, and yet the US government does not seem to be in any hurry to find a long term, sustainable solution. In fact, what does George Bush do? He will go to Saudi Arabia and ask them to raise their output. Chrysler and its group brands have been offering petrol subsidies to its consumers. The message from the American government and the American industry is clear - don't stop living the American way because oil is at USD 135.

Whatever changes that are being brought in the developed world are the changes that these societies have been forced to adopt. Now I see there is talk in the US about saving, a concept that was completely non-existent in that country till a few years ago. Now people are maybe beginning to feel that the government will probably not be able to take care of them when they grow old.

In fact, I feel Europe will be more affected because of maybe cultural factors. They are a very protected society, and for some reason, I feel that they are going down on research and innovation, which, in the past few decades, has been an exclusive domain of the United States and Japan. I think I could probably take Germany as an exception here.

As for the developing world, I am very, very sad to see the road they seem to be taking. It seems India does not want to learn any lessons from the past. In fact, India is not known to learn any lessons from the past. The America of today is reeling under financial strain because of its extravagant, materialistic lifestyle, and the Indian society is more than happy to adapt the same, without any qualms or any inhibitions at all.

We all have heard real life stories of farmers reeling under debt because they are unable to pay it in time because of various reasons, but the new Indian who is unable to pay his/her loan is not an entrepreneur or a farmer, but an urban consumer who simply can't keep up with his/her lifestyle. People today, especially the youth, are too busy living the western life to think about anything else. I relate this to an addiction. When its new, the addict will go all out.

When the west accuses India of saying it is not doing enough to save the environment, and India says it has every right to bring prosperity to its people, I really don't know what stand to take. I agree, India has a right to bring prosperity to its people, but I believe India can also be at the forefront of a sustained environmental revolution. We can live happy, we can consume all we want, but not in the way the developed countries consume, but we can be environmentally responsible at the same time.

Our electricity infrastructure is in doldrums. Most of it is lost, there is always more demand than production, and many new giant fossil fuel based projects are planned. Yet at the same time, I have heard scientists say that most of India's hydroelectric production capacity is yet to be tapped. This is something we can focus on.

Our rivers are dying, and they need to be protected. There need to be a massive drive to enforce proper waste disposal mechanisms, proper waste water treatment, effluent waste treatment, and a massive, massive, water harvesting and preservation campaign at all levels. We need to do this for ourselves, not for anybody else. So what if we have a 110 crore people, if we plan, there will still not be a water problem. Bring about rainwater harvesting in all parts of the country. Establish massive recycling plants for urban waste, make a sincere effort to preserve our rivers and natural resources, and I am sure we will be much happier people.

But how many decision makers will think like this? How does one bring out a change in the perception of our decadent society? These are very difficult questions, and thinking about the most obvious answers to them is what makes me a pessimist.

BJP wins Karnataka!

BJP has won the Karnataka Assembly elections, winning 110 seats out of the total 224 seats.

Congress, and those despicable local sons of the soil in Janata Dal (Secular) managed only 80 and 28 seats respectively. This will be BJP's first government in the south. People say this is the sign of things to come in the coming union elections. Congress politicians have been vehemently calling this a local issue having no bearing at the central level, but I don't believe a word of that. Congress has lost state elections in most states in the last 4 years, I suppose they are all local elections too, and Congress is probably hoping to ride on its 'successes' of reservations and minority appeasement into its next term at the center.

I am happy to see that the Gowda family has been reduced to nothing. I suppose that's inevitable when you are a two-faced, deceitful politician. I am really hoping the BJB grabs on this opportunity, and does great work in Karnataka, because this will have a good effect on its LS poll chances.

the pressure's been paying off

I am really used to writing about myself on the internet, and personally, it freaks me out, but I think I should probably mention a really grand achievement of my live.

I have made it to IIM Calcutta.

I started last year without an aim and without a plan. Well, a plan to stay in India that is. Thanks to a lot of factors, I worked towards this competition in earnest, and thanks to the Almightly, its paid off. I always considered myself the dark horse - an NRI for the past six years, not an engineering degree, and without any science education in the last eight years. But hey, I proposed, and God disposed. I can't even imagine the number of absolutely smart kids I must have left behind. They were better than me in maths, maybe DI, and probably had a lot more practice, but I got through. But enough with beating this subject to death. Perhaps this blog is again speed up once I report to the Joka campus.

By the way, this journey hasn't been without its hiccups. Arjun "sycophant" Singh implemented the OBC quota, obviously on instructions from his gutless and divisive party, so that delayed the results by around three weeks. I had fears in my mind whether they will cut general seats to accommodate the new applicants, but fortunately that wasn't the case.

I can't bitch enough about the entire quota system in education. Only recently did I hear of the government's efforts to increase educational funding and other grants. This is the only way to go in our education system. We need to design it that it is equal for everyone, and everybody has an equal opportunity to get in.

The problem lies in the economically weaker sections. But the government isn't thinking about the economically weaker, it is thinking about the apparently 'backward' castes that it aims to exploit for their votes. This has been the quota trend for all our independence. What the government needs to do is ensure that the economically weaker students have enough money to fund their preparations, and if they make it, fund their tuitions.

The problem with our skewed and absolutely messed up economy is that even when they try to target the weaker sections, the only group of people who usually benefit are the stronger among the crowd. For example, because of a lack of accountability and unreliable tax set-up, the rich pose as poor to avail government benefits. Similarly, most perks for the "backward" castes are lapped up by the rich and politically strong amongst them.

I doubt our politicians will ever get rid of the quota systems in our every part of the state as the constitution envisions, and this situation will only get worse, and probably force a lot of good brains to flee. I am sure Dr. Ambedkar is turning in his grave seeing how his great name is being exploited by today's politicians for their own gains.

Urja Pradesh?

I would tell people that if you have lived on the hills, you probably can't live in the plains. All my trips to the Delhi region have been filled with my disdain for the region and the lifestyle. I tell them that in Uttarakhand, at least we get water and electricity, and the people aren't that bad, but I am proven wrong soon after.

There were huge posters in newspapers a few days ago about the commissioning of the Maneri Bhali hydroelectric project in Uttarakhand, and they said it would go a long way in help the state meet its electricity needs. But I get back from Delhi and see that we are facing power cuts too. Makes me feel kind of stupid now considering I told people there that we are the Urja Pradesh, and we hardly have any power cuts at all, amounting to less than an hour a day. But the lights have been going out in my house a lot more, and I ain't happy about it.

President Kalam said in his book, India 2020, that India needs to cut down the T&D losses in a big way if we have to be energy efficient in the future. Unfortunately, none of the policy makers have focused in this direction at all. I believe some areas lose almost 40 to 50 percent of the power before it reaches the consumer from the power station. That is a criminal waste of electricity and our resources. The Con'gress party has been peddling the Ultra Mega Power Projects for a while, which will cost thousands of crores of rupees, but if we focused on improving our transmission and distribution infrastructure, I am sure we could save as much electricity at much less the cost. Unfortunately, no policy maker is thinking this way, and I just don't understand how the planners of this country, if they are planning at all, can't fathom the fact that India can't move forward if we don't focus on our basic infrastructure, most notable being power and water.

For Freedom

Here's hoping the Congress Government will stop bending over backwards to the Chinese. The Left owes its allegiance to the "Peoples" Party, but its sad to see the Con'gress do so too, just to stay in power. The Commies banned Tibetan protests in West Bengal, and I hope the rest of the country noticed. What most of the country didn't notice is that the Congress Government in Arunachal Pradesh also banned Tibetan protests. These obedient dogs have been patted by their masters in Beijing.

Come elections, and I hope the Commies are wiped out from the Parliament. I don't know if I should wish the same for the Con'gress, but my faith in regional parties is even lesser. God forbid that national policies be made by people like Mayawati and Karunanidhi!